Sandia National Laboratories

A special congressional election is set for June 1 in New Mexico to fill the vacancy in the district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. The open seat was created March 16 when then-Rep. Debra Haaland (D) resigned to become President Joe Biden’s secretary of interior after being confirmed in a […]

Lack of communications between the Sandia National Laboratories and the Kansas City National Security Campus resulted in some improperly manufactured flex cables, and separately in the Missouri manufacturing facility accepting other flex cables that failed  post-manufacturing tests, the Department of Energy’s inspector general reported recently. Someone who tipped off the IG in 2019 about the […]

The U.S. Senate Monday voted 51-to-40 to confirm Rep. Debra Haaland (D-N.M.) as secretary of interior, which will create a vacancy in the congressional district that includes the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories facilities in Albuquerque. An Associated Press article Tuesday in the San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday former State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) will leave the Senate Armed Services Committee and join the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, keeping intact an important legislative shield for nuclear sites in the Land of Enchantment. I’m looking forward to serving as Vice Chair of the Joint Economic Committee as well as a member of the Appropriations Committee. I’ll also […]

The Sandia National Laboratories split its Nuclear Deterrence division into two new organizations and brought in a former Raytheon executive to oversee them, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based labs network announced this week. Sandia rolled out the changes internally in November, a labs spokesperson wrote in an email to Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. A major cog […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

The Sandia National Laboratories split its Nuclear Deterrence division into two new organizations and brought in a former Raytheon executive to oversee them, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based labs network announced this week. Sandia rolled out the changes internally in November, a labs spokesperson wrote in an email to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. A major cog in […]

Maggie Oliver will not run for Congress next year to represent the district that includes the Sandia National Laboratory, the New Mexico’s secretary of state tweeted before the holidays.  Oliver, a Democrat in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration, was seen as a possible candidate to replace Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) who is leaving Congress […]

At deadline Friday, winter weather had finally blown over New Mexico and Texas after an early-week barrage that gave all the nuclear-weapons sites in those states at one snow day. Non-essential dayshift employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, were most affected by an early winter storm that crusted the panhandle counties of Potter […]

The Sandia National Laboratories confirmed nine new cases of COVID-19 among its workforce last week, raising the lab network’s total since the start of the outbreak to 86 cases. As of Friday, Sandia Albuquerque had nine new cases while Sandia California, near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, had two new cases, a Sandia spokesperson said. […]

Sandia National Laboratories was preparing Tuesday to reopen its MO285 office space after deep-cleaning the area after an employee there tested positive for COVID-19, the nuclear-weapons engineering hub said. Only one employee working at MO285 tested positive, the labs network wrote in a statement Monday, when it began the deep cleaning that typically allows work […]

The Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories combined picked up less than a handful of new confirmed COVID-19 cases last week, the New Mexico nuke sites reported late last week after the ExchangeMonitor’s weekly deadline. Sandia’s cumulative case count rose to 63 from 60, with all three new cases logged at the lab network’s main […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said it finished construction of a new 15 kilovolt electrical distribution system that will provide redundant power supply for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. In a press release Tuesday, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said the Expand Electrical Distribution System hit its CD-4 milestone — […]

Weapons Complex Monitor took its annual summer recess in mid-August, but we kept track of the nuke news during the publishing holiday and have compiled it here for you. Ninth Court Upholds State Law on Hanford Worker Compensation A Washington state law that makes it easier for workers at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site to […]

The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., is set to reopen its Innovation Parkway Office Center on Tuesday, following a deep cleaning necessitated by a COVID-19 case on-site. After announcing confirmation Friday that an individual working in the building had caught the viral disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Sandia diverted anyone needing badging to […]

A building at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico used for performance tests on non-nuclear nuclear-weapon components opened back up for its regular work schedule Monday, following a a COVID-19 deep-cleaning. Sandia announced last week that one person in Building 720, home of the Ion Beam Laboratory, tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease […]

A day after the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico had mostly reopened Building 823 after a case of COVID-19 among its workforce, the Department of Energy facility had to close down Building 720 after the disease caused by the novel coronavirus 2019 popped up there as well. Building 720, which houses the Ion Beam […]

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories said Monday it evacuated and closed Building 823 at its Albuquerque, N.M., facility after confirming a case of COVID-19 among the workforce there.  Sandia will now disinfect the building, which houses laboratory space used by Sandia’s geosciences program and others, and track down anybody there who had close contact […]

A pair of buildings at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico mostly reopened Tuesday after deep cleanings that followed one confirmed case of COVID-19 among regular facilities users. The one-day closure affected Building 983, which hosts the Z Pulsed Power Facility high-energy density physics operation, and Building MO321, an office trailer. Building 983’s High […]

The Sandia National Laboratories cleared out a couple buildings on its New Mexico campus last week after confirming positive cases of COVID-19 there, though one of the facilities reopened before the weekend was out. Sandia announced Friday that both Building 836 and Building 867 had closed after a postive test was confirmed among the occupants […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) agreed to share a strategic management plan it is preparing for sustaining microelectronics infrastructure at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico with the Government Accountability Office, which wants the nuclear-weapon agency to appoint a more powerful manager for the program. The plan will be ready around December 2020, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) agreed to share a strategic management plan it is preparing for sustaining microelectronics infrastructure at the Sandia National Laboratories with the Government Accountability Office, which wants the nuclear-weapon agency to appoint a more powerful manager for the program. The plan will be ready around December 2020, NNSA Administrator Lisa […]

The Energy Department anticipates the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina will be better able to “engage with the research community” by having a its own operations contract, according to documents recently posted online. The slides used for an April 28 virtual online meeting on the draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year, […]

The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico temporarily closed parts of the MESA complex where it produces radiation-hardened microelectronics for nuclear weapons after someone working there tested positive for COVID-19. However, the labs network said it planned to reopen Buildings 858N and 858EF on Thursday morning, after shutting them down for deep cleaning. Sandia is […]

Sandia National Laboratories has been cleared to start processing COVID-19 tests for the general public, according to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). The nuclear-weapon engineering lab started testing its own employees for the viral disease on April 7 at its Albuquerque, N.M., headquarters, and on April 15 at its Livermore, Calif., campus. On Tuesday, according […]

Not much sooner than Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette provided the guidance for doing so, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) added language to its prime contracts for major nuclear-weapon sites for billing the government for paid time off given to workers who couldn’t do their job because of COVID-19. The agency had not posted […]

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories has started offering limited COVID-19 tests for its employees, but it was unclear if the weapons engineering lab had tested anyone as of Friday. Sandia is also “entering into a contract” to provide tests for the general public, but “there’s some federal paperwork that has to be resolved” […]

With the United States probing the possibility of thawing the social freeze from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories plan to start slowly ramping up on-site work this month. Los Alamos has been in a mission-critical operations posture since March, limiting on-site work to what Director Thomas […]

The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico said Monday it had evacuated its Building 954 and might do some deep cleaning there, after confirmed a case of COVID-19 among the workforce. The lab was at deadline determining which employees at Building 954 had been in contact with the infected recently, according to Sandia’s website. The building […]

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories started offering limited COVID-19 tests for its employees last week, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory could start testing this week, according to a senior state official. Sandia is for now only testing federal employees, contractors, and subcontractors at its Albuquerque campus, a spokesperson for the weapons-engineering lab […]